Pocket Kingdom: Own the World Impressions

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We play SEGA's and Nokia's upcoming roleplaying extravaganza. Plus new screens.

By Adam Tierney

Along with Pathway to Glory, Pocket Kingdom: Own the World looks to be one of the real standout titles on the N-Gage's horizon. Co-developed by Nokia and Sega, the game puts the player in a flying fortress and allows them to traverse an online world through the N-Gage's connectivity and battle any opposing fortresses they come across.

This might not sound particularly interesting, but what Sega and Nokia did was craft a story that breaks the fourth wall so constantly, even Charlie Kaufman might be impressed. The idea is that on the N-Gage Arena board rankings, three players have dominated the charts. But when they are later found to have cheated their way to the top ('griefers') and are booted out of the rankings, everyone else makes a mad dash to claim their seats. So the game features a story about you, a n00b to the Pocket Kingdom game, seeking to climb the ranks while at the same time, in reality you're doing just that. Through the power of mobile connectivity, the actual N-Gage Arena stats are woven into the story, so that for example whoever is currently the top player will have their name displayed as such every time any PK player connects online. And immediately preceding the game's release, the three griefers will be at the top of the chart, to incur curiosity from the players the same way Spielberg's AI and Bungie's Halo 2 have used to net.

To further this notion of players taking the role of not an army, but of a gamer controlling an army, all dialogue is comprised of '133t speak' and general slang. So the warriors you control aren't yelling 'Have at you!,' but instead something like 'Step to this, n00b! I'll work you like I worked your mum!' (that's a quote) The abandonment of solemnity and realism in this title also allows for any fantasy characters to show up, from ninjas to monsters to vampires - it's all good in the world of Pocket Kingdom.

So the story works, but how does the gameplay? Well it's advertised as the world's first mobile MMORPG, but it plays more like a combination of Advance Wars and Tamagotchi. You care for your troops, made up of 100 different character types, and can upgrade your little warriors with over 50,000 weapons, items and gems. This number is so large due to the fact that much of the game's characters and items cannot all be discovered but rather must be created. Each player has a laboratory and for example, the desirable fire-breathing ninja is only accessible if you take the time to perform a few mad scientist experiments on one of your poor knights.

So like Advance Wars, you don't actually fight the battles yourself but rather develop your characters and decide who to place in each fray. They will then duke it out with the opponents, talk a little smack and bring back some rewards from their battle. Combat management is completely customizable though, and you can direct your warriors to attack enemies based on hitpoints, power, etc. In addition to your characters insulting each other, players receive the same opportunity through chat functionality between N-Gage systems.

There is an eBay-like global auction system where you can peddle any items you've collected or buy supplies off others. You can also tap the lands you travel for their natural resources. Like most upcoming N-Gage titles, Pocket Kingdom makes use of the Arena function for global ranking, with specific listings for players with the most items, most wins, etc.

An offline mode of the game takes about 60 hours to complete, but the online mode goes on indefinitely. And gameplay is all handled through Nokia's Arena, not via Bluetooth, so players really get an opportunity to battle other gamers a world away. The art is colorful, interfaces are easy and female avatars in the game ease the player in, so that even those with no reference on the whole 1337 craze won't be lost. Sprites by Sega are adorable and resemble those from the old SNK pocket games.

My initial reaction to Pocket Kingdom last May when the game debuted at E3 was that the dialogue was cute, but how fun could a game be where you're not actually controlling your battles? However within the scope of the story and gameplay features, it actually makes sense. You raise these individual battlers, tweak them and train them, but ultimately you have to let them go fight on their own like a supportive parent. Because these characters act via AI and your loose instructions, the dialogue actually works much better because you're observing little quirky characters rather than reading these words forced out of your own mouth. And self-reference extends to the warriors, who are well aware of the fact that they're in a videogame and either mock that fact or fear being destroyed.

Pocket Kingdom is an incredibly social game, and the most original title on N-Gage's already impressive list. The characters are very customizable but it still remains to be seen whether the basic battle gameplay will be varied enough to keep N-Gage owners online longterm. However, like PTG, Pocket Kingdom pours its ambition into the N-Gage's strengths and considering the slow data transfer speeds currently available through wireless phones, the game gets a tremendous lot done to flesh out the online world and interaction between players. Like any experimental, genre-defying title, we won't know until it's in the hands of a few thousand players just how fun Pocket Kingdom actually is. But considering it's the only major mobile MMO (and a free one at that, once you buy the game) it's definitely something to keep an eye on.